Growing up in the Seattle area, I realize what I'm about to say is considered football blaspheme by many in the Emerald City, but before I talk about Jake Locker the football player, let me comment on Jake Locker the human being.I've never met the guy, but everything I hear is he is as upstanding of a young man as you can imagine. I'm talking about the kind of reputation that makes you want your daughter to bring someone like this home.
On that subject, I talked with a friend whose sister dated Locker for a period of time. She told me Jake treated her sister perfectly. A total class act.
It would be great if character was the most important prerequisite for NFL success. Our kids, communities and society would benefit greatly from high character role models. Unfortunately, for Locker, success in the NFL requires more than being a nice guy.
This is not to say Locker doesn't have all the tools to be a successful NFL quarterback. He possesses a cannon for an arm, moves out of the pocket like Steve Young and has a strong, powerful physique. Physical attributes aside, he is humble, hard working and lives for football.
All these things lead you to believe he might be the number one pick in the draft, and if this were last year, he probably would be. However, Locker returned to college for his Senior season and subsequently, his draft stock fell as his flaws were exposed.
As a Junior, his poor completion percentage and losing record as a starter weren't as big of a deal to scouts who said he would improve in the coming years. However, Locker made no significant improvements in those two areas, began attaching red flags to his future as a franchise quarterback.
Mention Locker's weaknesses to Seattle natives and Locker apologists show up faster than you can say the words incomplete pass. 'He came from a poor system in high school', 'Tyrone Willingham was a terrible coach', 'He's never had a real QB coach', 'He's had to learn multiple offensive systems at UW', 'His receivers drop lots of passes', 'His line doesn't protect him', 'It's windy in the stadium', 'The system doesn't maximize his talents', and on and on and on.
It's like telling them the sky is blue, to which they'll vehemently say it's green! It's enough to drive a sane man crazy! So, in an effort to find some undeniable trends to back my "theory" that the sky is still blue, I did some research and found two stats that are extremely consistent between successful college and NFL quarterbacks; college winning and completion percentages.
To make this unbiased, I looked up those two stats for the top 10 quarterbacks according to ESPN's power rankings.
Player College % NFL % College record as starter
Tom Brady 62.3 63.6 20-5
Peyton Manning 62.5 64.9 39-6
Drew Brees 61.5 65.2 **
Aaron Rodgers 63.8 64.4 17-4
Ben Roethlisberger 65.5 63.1 27-11
Phillip Rivers 63.5 63.7 34-17
Michael Vick 56.5 55.3 21-1
Matt Ryan 59.9 60.8 25-7
Eli Manning 60.8 58.0 24-13
Joe Flacco 63.3 62.0 16-10
Tony Romo 64.0 64.1 **
Jake Locker 53.9 TBD 15-24
**Could not find consistent starting records for Brees or Romo.
The numbers on this list are pretty consistent. Only two guys had completion percentages below 60%, Michael Vick, who is the most unique athlete in the league, and Matt Ryan, who is barely off the mark. Another thing to look at is how the completion percentage doesn't vary much from college to the NFL. In other words, an passer's accuracy doesn't generally improve by more than a few percentage point. Additionally, not one QB had a losing record in college and, to be honest, none of them were even close.
There are examples of players who didn't have great college numbers, yet went on to be successful in the NFL; Brett Favre and Joe Montana come to mind. However, those two entered the league a long time ago when the league was much less of a passing league. I chose to use the current league leaders because this is the league Locker will enter.
Despite the numbers, I really do, honest to goodness, hope Jake Locker succeeds in the NFL. He is the type of athlete you want to cheer for and a player you want your kids to emulate. While it's possible Jake Locker will develop into a successful NFL quarterback who completes a better percentage of passes, doing so would make him the greatest statistical anomaly of the last decade.
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